New Scientist has reported on how the 2019 fire at the Notre Dame, Paris, unexpectedly led to discovery of the building’s use of iron staple reinforcements throughout its structure.
image: for illustration – By Ali Sabbagh – Notre Dam De Paris, CC0, Wikipedia
New Scientist writes:
… renovation efforts unexpectedly revealed large iron staples holding together many of the building’s stone blocks. Analysis has now shown that Notre Dame was the first Gothic cathedral to use such iron reinforcement throughout its structure…
Notre Dame was the tallest building ever constructed when the project first began in medieval Paris during the 1160s.
Examination(s)… estimate that the building has thousands of staples from the floors to the upper walls. ‘The fact that the framework burned made some staples that could not be visible before appear to us,’ says L’Héritier. He described each staple as being about 50 centimetres long and weighing between 2 and 4 kilograms.
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